Drunk-dialing God
by kennagirl
Summary: Dean's got a bone to pick.


It had been three weeks. Three weeks since Sam fell into a hole in a cemetery. And if that phrasing didn't bring to mind the memory of Sam tripping into one of a hundred graves he and Dean had dug up just as Dean had turned around to get the salt, then Dean just wasn't drunk enough. As it was, he had been in the little bar for quite a while, having gotten there just after quick lunch of sandwiches and the clock behind the bar reading ten.

The first week had been hard. He drank every night. He had tried sleeping on the couch, but when he woke up yelling, Lisa told him it was nonsense for him to be alone. He slept better in her room, arms wrapped around her, feeling someone there, but it wasn't the same. She was too small and soft, not the broad shoulders, the hard muscle that he had become so accustomed to having pressed to his chest. But she woke him from the nightmares before he woke Ben, so that he didn't have to suffer one more guilt of robbing a nearly-teenage boy of his sleep.

The second week was no easier. He stopped drinking at the house and instead stopped at the bar every night. He never had more than one beer on weeknights because he knew he had work at the auto shop the next morning. As much as he didn't really want the job, he wasn't going to be a burden to Lisa and showing up hungover to his new job would definitely get him in trouble or possibly fired. Besides, Ben didn't need to see him like that.

This last week had been exactly the same. Get up, go to work, stop for a beer, go home, go to sleep, wake up out of breath and scared shitless, repeat. It was a pattern of sorts and as long as he could go through every day, he was in good shape. Time not spent at work was spent with the Braedens, chatting with Lisa or throwing a football with Ben. But now…

This weekend, they were out of town. A long-standing commitment to see some friends of Lisa's had left Dean alone. She was willing to break it off if he needed her to, but he told her to go, sticking with his plan of not being a burden. He could handle a few days by himself, he told her. It wasn't a big deal at all.

As it turned out, one day by himself was turning into more than he could handle.

Last night had been bad, with him waking up screaming twice, a picture of Sam seared into his eyelids. He had gotten up at 4:30 after the second time, deciding to go ahead and start the day. He made some coffee for himself and set about doing any cleaning he could think of that might possibly need to be done. As the sun rose, the bathrooms and kitchen were spotless and he was waxing the Impala on the driveway. By lunch he had done all the yard work he could find. He was sitting on the couch when it suddenly hit him. He had to get out, be around people. He couldn't be alone much longer.

So he decided getting drunk for the first time since Sam left was a great idea. It's not like he was going to become an alcoholic that drinks to fight off some deep depression. But he knew that when he got really drunk, he thought stupid things. And sometimes those stupid things were nothing more than funny memories that he knew would make him laugh. And that's all he wanted right now. A chance to fucking laugh for the first time in three weeks that had felt like forever.

So he sat there, for a long time, drinking every beer the bartender decided he could have, getting up only to take a leak. He didn't challenge the rich college boys to a game of pool or a round of darts, even though he knew he could have made good money off of them. It felt too close to hunting, now that he had a job. It reminded him too sharply of scams run with Sam. He kept to his memories, blurred at the edges by time and alcohol.

Sam asleep with a plastic spoon hanging out of his mouth.

Sam handing him strawberry-scented, extra-strength women's deodorant because "It's just not cutting it anymore for you, man."

Sam and he wrestling, his head firmly in Sam's arm, squished to his chest.

Sam panting and writhing beneath him, moaning out his name, arms coming up to clutch his back.

Sam with his arms spread wide in Stull-

_NO!_

Dean's eyes snapped open, making him realize they had been shut. He wouldn't, couldn't think of that. That was a Very Bad Idea. The bartender looked at him strangely, and Dean realized he was starting to hyperventilate. He calmed his breathing and put some money on the counter. It was more than enough to pay for the drinks he had consumed, but he wasn't about to wait for his change. He had to get out of there.

He had walked to the bar. It was close enough to Lisa's house that he didn't need a car and he didn't want to drive drunk, just in case something happened. He couldn't do that to Lisa or Ben. But when he left, he didn't want to go to the house. It was still empty and quiet. He needed to do something. So he set off in the opposite direction with no goal other than walking.

The only problem is, now that he's thought about it, he can't get it out of his head. Sam, falling back, Adam with him, was just replaying over and over in his mind. What kind of hell must they been in? He chuckled at that, but it sounded halfway to a sob, because of course, they were in Hell and how much worse could it get? And they were probably in the worst part, where there wasn't even the slightest hope. Even at first, Dean had held some tiny shred of hope that he might be saved. It had been ripped out of him with that first slice, but he had had it. He doubted Sam even had that much. What would those demons do to him? Burn him, freeze him, draw and quarter him? That would be too easy. Probably show him Jess, again and again, pinned to the ceiling with the flames kissing her skin, tinting it black while Sam could do nothing. Put the gun in his hand and a teary-eyed Madison in front of him. Andy's body, gutted and soaked in his own blood, like Sam had told him. Make him relieve every single failure, see every person he couldn't save. Send a demon wearing Dean's face to Sam's side, saying things Dean would never say and doing things Dean would never do.

He turned and punched a tree, hissing when the pain hit, sobering him up the tiniest amount. At the very least, it shocked him out of his mental loop. Of course they would do all that. He knew they would. He had been down there long enough to know exactly how their brains worked, how they delighted in not only physical torture but just the right emotional torture to truly tear a person apart from the inside out. They would do all that and so much more, and why? Because Sam had drawn the shortest possible straw in the chance pile.

Dean pressed his back to the tree, pulling his hand over his face to try to scrub the thoughts away. He looked up at the building in front of him and realized exactly what it was. A church, with big wooden doors and light filtering through the stained glass windows. The kind of place he set foot in on more than one occasion, but never with the purpose most people intended. He went to gather supplies or information, part of the job that he had left behind, never spiritual, never to talk to God.

But maybe that's what he needed right now.

He marched up to the big wooden door and pulled it open, making a statement about his presence as opposed to slipping in unnoticed. He stormed through the foyer, past the shelves of missalettes and a stilled baptismal font. The second set of doors was lighter than the ones outside, and he easily yanked it open before striding into the center of the sanctuary and looking right up at the circular stained glass window above the altar.

"Hey, God!" he yelled, spreading his arms wide to catch attention. "It's me, Dean! Maybe you remember, your kids tried to kill me. Well, you've put me through a lot of crap, so you better fucking listen!" He gave it a moment to let that sink in, then started again. "So why us, huh? Why do the Winchesters suffer some kind of curse? And don't try to feed me some bullshit about blessings in disguise, because you can take that and stuff it back up your ass. We were cursed for some reason and I want to know why. Was it Mom? When she made that deal to get Dad back? Or Dad killing any of those evil sons of bitches while he looked for the thing that killed Mom? Because that's not curse-worthy material. In fact, that's pretty damn sane compared to some of the stuff you came up with. I mean, killing your own kid because someone asked you to? Who does that? I'll tell you, John Winchester may not have been father of the year, but he never would have laid a finger on us. And even if that was it, whatever happened to not putting the sins of fathers on their children?" He stopped the pacing he had begun somewhere during his argument and looked up again. "Oh yeah. I know your points, and I'm fully prepared to use them against you." He resumed wearing a stripe into the ground.

"So it wasn't anything Mom or Dad did, so it must have been me and Sam. How else would we have gotten all this crap dumped on us? Honestly, what did we do to deserve this? If it's the killing thing, I know there's something somewhere that says we have the right to do that for our safety and the safety of others. And that's all we did it for. It's not the sex, drinking, or gambling, because then most everybody in the world would be in shit as deep as we are. So it must be me and Sam."

He stopped again, this time keeping his eyes on the ground. "So why not me too, huh?" he whispered. "If you didn't like that Sam and I were together THEN WHY NOT ME TOO?!" He clenched and unclenched his fists, then spun and grabbed a pew, flipping it over. "WHY DID YOU TAKE SAM AND NOT ME? WHY IS HE STUCK IN HELL WHILE I'M UP HERE, LIVING, BREATHING, CARRYING ON WITH LIFE LIKE HE WANTED ME TO? BECAUSE THAT'S THE ONLY REASON I'M STILL HERE, I CAN TELL YOU THAT MUCH!" He faced forward and glared at the altar. "Everything that Sam's done, I've done too, and I've done so much worse than him! You and your flunkies were so convinced that I was the good son, but Sam was so much better than me! So if you had to take one, why did it have to be him?" He heard a gasp behind him and whirled around.

A priest, probably around his age with sleeves rolled up and collar unbuttoned stood in the doorway, taking in the mild havoc Dean had wreaked upon the church. He schooled his expression from slightly shocked to one of concern and stepped forward carefully. "Can I help you?"

Dean almost laughed at that. "Not unless you can drag someone from Hell," he muttered and glanced back at the pew. He righted it and walked back to the door. As he passed the priest, he noticed the expectant look on his face. "Your boss is a dick," Dean told him before letting himself out back into the night.

He made it back to Lisa's house on autopilot. Upstairs, shower, throw the clothes in the washer and start it so the smell of beer and bar wouldn't soak in much longer. He crawled into Lisa's bed and shut off the light, hoping for dreams that featured one of Sam's many exits from his life.

They were so much easier to deal with than the ones where Sam was still there.


End file.
